Posted
by
timothyon Monday March 29, 2004 @09:25PM
from the not-a-speed-demon dept.

berchca writes "So it looks like OpenOffice.org for Mac OS X has finally hit 1.1.1 (for X11). They've also stated they probably won't do a native (Aqua/Carbon) release until OOo 2.0 is out, in late 2005 or early. Great work guys! Now I can get decent macros." I hope 1.1.1 has some speedups over 1.1.0, which works well but takes forever to start.

I remember reading how you can check the code out and compile of Darwin/Mac OS X, but the code checkout itself took an hour over my connection, and I only have a 500MHz G3, I'd be old and grey before it finished. Anyway, I'm going to see if this can kill off PowerPoint (I already replaced Execl with Gnumeric, and Word with TextEdit (I found TextEdit to be just more damn efficent at being a word processor then Word ever was), and if not, keep searching so I can de-M$ my machine.

the problem with keynote is that it makes all of the people who have never seen it before too distracted.
What's that?
Why doesn't my powerpoint look that good?
How did you make it do that thingy with the cube! that was too cool!
How come your inlaid videos work and mine never do?
No one ever pays attention to my presentation!!!
; )

Personally, I consider this to be the main reason for using Keynote. I also use my mobile phone to advance the slides using bluetooth / Romeo. Hardly anyone listens to a word I'm actually saying, which means I never get any difficult questions at the end.

When I really don't know what I'm talking about or don't want the audience to notice what I'm talking about, I use Keynote and remote it with my bluetooth cellphone.

No one will bother me with my presentation, they just want to know how they can do something as shiny as I did.

When I want to drive a point and make sure they get it, I make the most bland and straight to the point bullets, export to PowerPoint (to get rid of the antialiasing), and present it with a cord mouse.

The native KDE stuff is still a beta thing but if you don't mind to leave some of its functions like import filters you might want to give it a try. Works fine for me. Have a look at its Wiki over at KDE on Darwin [befunk.com]. Also available are binaries.

Bah, KDE is the one thing worse then using OO.o 1.0 on Mac OS X. It struggles on the PowerMac (although if I change it to wmaker, it's usable to say the least), and caused a kernel panic on the iBook. I just have the libraries floating around just incase I need to run k-program, but other tehn tha, I just use quartz-wm and Apple's own X11.

Not sure what his problem with fink is, but I dislike it because there aren't enough packages available in stable as binaries. It seems like everything I try to install is in unstable or unavailable prebuilt.

Hundreds of ports, doesn't interfere with the rest of your system (at least not with mine), and a nice front end.

Here's my trials with fink: I wanted to install Subversion Client (just the client mind you) for OSX. So I installed fink.. oops, looks like SVNclient requires an update to fink, ok, i run the fink updater.. oops, looks like SVNclient wants to install X, and even though I already have Apple's X11 installed, I have to rm -rf/usr/X11R6 (that's what fink tells me), so it can install fink's crappy X11. Ok.. now, two hours later on a dual ghz G4, it runs into a problem compiling one of the zillion dependencies.

Fuck that.

Fink is like trying to use DEB and RPM simultaneously.. dependency hell and nothing ever works right.

How anyone who uses OSX could recommend fink is beyond me.. it's like the anti-christ... or at least the anti-osx.

well, I'll tell you what, I had exactly the same idea as this guy last night and tried to download the subversion package, and gave up half way through recompiling the new version of Fink (WTF, I just downloaded it as binary and it wants to download (AND COMPILE!!?!?!?!?!?!) a new version of itself??). You're about as helpful as the myriad documents I had to plough through to get that far.

It's a mess, and if you're used to that kind of software deployment and want to put up with it, great, but frankly, it's about 10 years behind the rest of the world. I don't mind messing around on the command line to get a command line tool up and running, but what's with this 'auto-update' that actually has to compile most of the software again and a graphical client that doesn't even manage to hide the command line (please type in your response (what, you mean, like on a command line but with a little dialog that gets in the way?)) and has lots of cryptic menus (selfupdate-rsynch)? Yes, I *can* go away and find out what the menus in the app mean, but it's a tool for getting new software, not photoshop; I'd expect the menus etc to be straightforward and legible for someone who's not familiar with the program. It could at least have chosen a default update method rather than sticking at that point. The flat file layout (just like on the command line then, how about nested trees of categories at least?) and basic GUI I could put up with, but it took two hours to get software that should have been painless to install.

Why exactly should I have to download and compile a new version of software and all the libraries it depends on just after I've downloaded the binary?? Then it gives me messages like this... (note the mistake (at least I damn well hope so) in file size). The only advantage is the dependency checking, which it doesn't even seem to work all the time.

Need to get 4933kB of archives. After unpacking 1980MB will be used.

Take a look at bundles on OS X (ship the used version of the library with the app, in a nice neat package), then look at fink and tell me it *just works* if you know what you're doing. For certain values of knowing what you're doing, yes it just works. I think the point of the parent poster was that he doesn't want to have to go through all that pain just to try out some software. Not that he can't 'learn fink' but that he doesn't see the benefits which repay all that effort. Ah, I must go, I have another 'please provide your response to the command line' message.

oops, looks like SVNclient wants to install X, and even though I already have Apple's X11 installed, I have to rm -rf/usr/X11R6 (that's what fink tells me), so it can install fink's crappy X11.

Install Apple's X11 package from the Developer Tools CD; that includes the headers you need. Then run "fink install system-x11", or whatever the specific package is called (it should give you the option when you try to install something the needs an X11). Fink, and whatever it's compiling, will then be able to se

Darwinports [opendarwin.org] worked pretty well for me installing subversion. I can't remember now, but I think it still requires some compiling and setup to get darwinports working, but once it is done, just type port install subversion, and it compiles and installs, without depending on anything stupid like X if it isn't needed.

Instead of pissing in the wind with X on Mac, all of the effort should be for the native aqua version. The X version looks horrible and performs horrible. I just helped my cousin, who is a complete nube, buy an Ibook online last night for his first computer. It's a damn good thing AppleWorks is coming with it. I'd have hated to tell the guy "well, you know nothing about computers, so I guess you'll either have to shell out huge bucks for MS Office for Mac, or buy an XP box".

While we Nix people like the BSD underneath, one of the Mac's best features is that it's a great machine for for people with ZERO comp expierience to use. Asking one of these people to "put in X, and then compile OpenOffice" kinda kills the easy part, doesn't it? So quit wasting time, and get on that native version, OO.org developers...

When are people going to stop repeating this tired old line? Just because you have an opinion about the direction of some software, doesn't mean you have time or skills or motivation to contribute yourself, just because the code is there.

For fuck's sake. The OO.o developers do their shit by choice, and they put the results out there of their own accord, for people to use and consume. That means if other people want to use it, and be critical, or say what they think on Slashdot, then they're fucking well entitled to do so.

So can you please stop repeating that tired old mantra of 'shutup or contribute'. It's completely silly and unrealistic.

Porting OO.org to Aqua is a HUGE project and it's not going to be done overnight

All the more reason to be doing it now, rather than, as the parent said, 'pissing in the wind'.

if you want it so badly, give them some help

And finally, he doesn't, he said he's a Nix user. It's other people who want it. And those type of people are the LEAST able to contribute.

The problem is not that he has an opinion -- we all have opinions. The problem is that the orginal poster was an ass and suggested that other people spend time on his priorities. Since he isn't a customer he has no basis to make those demands. It is reasonable to say "it would be nice and useful to have an OSX version" but stupid and childlike to say "you suck because you don't spend your time on what I want." I'm sure the OOo developers had a very good reason to finish up the 1.1.1 release instead of devoting all of their resources to the far-distant 2.0 release, so unless you are willing to contribute with your own sweat and time, at the very least keep your suggestions polite.

aw snookums... I didn't meant for you to get your panties in a bunch! Perhaps you can understand the contradiction between "They're not MY priorities." and "I want the Mac to succeed as much as possible.", but perhaps I'm giving you too much credit. No matter.

"It would be reasonable, but it wouldn't get a fucking thing done. The squeeky wheel gets the grease."

Clearly you have never managed or worked on an OSS project, because you are dead wrong. A chorus of users requesting a feature will get attention from the developers, an annoying asshole making persistant demands of our time to satisfy his needs will be ignored. When you are dealing with companies you can bitch and moan and people will listen because they are paid to. I know few people that are willing to volunteer their time to be bitched at by asshole strangers and in my experience I find they don't respond well to people like you.

"And let me suggest to YOU, Mr. Indignant, that if your're this damn easily offended, you find someplace other than Slashdot to hang out."

OT: How in the bloody fuck did you know that my real name is Mr. Indignant?!?! You CIA/FBI/NSA or what?? In any case I wasn't offended, I was just pointing out that you are an asshole... something we both seem to agree on. Please feel free to continue being an asshole, it doesn't bother me at all. Also, have a nice day.

Perhaps it's just because I'm insane or blind, but I can't seem to find the binaries for 1.1.1 at all. I'm busy building it from source on my work machine, but if there's a binary, that would be better.

Having ported other (admittedly small) apps from Linux to OSX, I'd have to say that it's highly unlikely that any work that is done for the OSX/X11 is "wasted", as most of the porting is likely to be from the library/kernel differences, not from moving from one XFree86 install to another.

The waiting-on-2.0 is because 2.0 will have an abstraction layer above the UI toolkit, which will also allow native Gtk/Qt builds.

If nothing else, this can help them gather interest (and thus developers) *now* instead of in a year or more, when the native version might be ready. Except it won't without help...

According to the OO website, they will not be doing an Aqua port until 2.0 because the graphics code is to be completely rewritten then; any work they did on it now would be thrown away in just over a year.

Instead of pissing in the wind with X on Mac, all of the effort should be for the native aqua version. The X version looks horrible and performs horrible.

But it's available now. If they'd insisted on doing a native Aqua port instead of building and maintainging the X11 version first, OpenOffice for OSX would still be vaporware... vaporware that a lot of people would be sitting on the sidelines questioning whether it was ever going to happen.
This way we know that OOo is going get ported to OS X, because it already has. That builds confidence, establishing that OOo is a real cross-platform app, not just a Linux app that's been successfully ported to one other OS.

That's particularly important to me, because it means I can finally run the same wp and work on the book I'm writing (on a USB keydrive) on my iBook out on the front porch, during my lunch break on my Windows machine at work, or in the wee hours on my main desktop running Linux. That's so much more convenient than some kludge importing/exporting files with AppleWorks, and worth putting up with the painfully long launch time of OOo 1.0 on a G3/500 (I leave it running and put the iBook to sleep between uses) and the Win/Lin-looking UI.

It's a damn good thing AppleWorks is coming with it....

Depending on what functions your cousin needs, there are other non-MS apps available for OS X (Nisus Writer, Mariner Write/Calc, FileMaker).

Asking one of these people to "put in X, and then compile OpenOffice".

Compile? 1) Download X11 from Apple.com and run the install package. 2) Download the latest OOo*.dmg file (one for 1.1.1 should be along soon) and run the install package. It may not be fully noob-compatible, but it's not as difficult as you make it out to be.

I have to agree. One of the reasons the OO isn't being taken seriously by the masses as a replacement for Microsoft Office is because they spend too much time dickering with things that don't matter to the masses.
Look and feel matter. Apple built a business on it. Don't force me into some inferior windowing system when I paid good money for OS X, the best GUI around.
I loved OO when I had my Wintel box. Now I have a PowerBook, and I'm running Office. Not because I want to, but because OO on the Mac

I was using it on Linux daily, I have not used MS Office for years. When I switched 20 months ago, I had to learn that OO.org is sucking on OS X and nobody really cares about it. It does not look native, slow, big and buggy. Suddenly it just sucked. Macs spoiled me. OS X spoiled me. And it's a good thing. I have changed from hardcore geek to somebody wo does not want to use slow unusable crap.

I wanted the ultimative usability experience and OO.org could not satisfy any of that. Since 20 months I am on search for The Office package. Haven't found one yet. I hope Apple is coming up with one soon, my another hope goes to the KDE + Qt/Mac porting project [opendarwin.org] especially the koffice part of it. I gave AbiWord [abisource.com] a shot, but it did not performe well. And there is no matching Spreadsheet app.

OO.org is dead for me. Big, slow, and too many of itch-scratch people working on it. No innovations.

You're quite right. OS X is perhaps the greatest operating system that's ever been available, truly sheer brilliance - not perfect, but now using Windows XP feels like going back to Win 3.1.

But we really need a nice office suite, sure there's MS Office, and I prefer it to the Windows version for several reasons, but there is no choice here. Everything except for MS Office is a half-finished non-full featured also-ran and that's a sad state of affairs. There's so much software in EVERY other category for OS X, I want for nothing but more choice in Office suites.

OO.org seems to be the only way out of this situation, but those OS X porting guys are having one hell of a time - until version 2.0 comes along, theres going to be no native Aqua stuff, and I think we're really looking at 2nd quarter 2006 before we have an installer and full featured Aqua OSS OO.org.

I know there are about 2 people working on the OS X port, partly because there's just not a lot of momentum because the main source team needs to finish parts of the 2.0 release before the OS X porting team can even begin.

But we really need a nice office suite, sure there's MS Office, and I prefer it to the Windows version for several reasons, but there is no choice here. Everything except for MS Office is a half-finished non-full featured also-ran and that's a sad state of affairs.

How is WordPerfect on the Mac these days? I am using Windows XP with Office XP. I loved Word Perfect but these last few versions since Corel has taken control have not thrilled me. It seems like someone needs to start building a coffin for Core

One problem is that everyone is stuck in the 1980's. That was when we ran one application at a time, when we had little to no copy and paste between applications, when your one aplication had to suite all your needs because it took to long to start another one.

The office suite is derived from that painful paste. It lingers because it is provides a nice profit center for microsoft. It, like the value meal, make what should be a $1 sale a $5 sale.

Try Nisus Writer Express [nisus.com] out. It's simply the best word processor for OS X. Yes, it is a commercial product, but it's worth the $59.95.

I know I don't have to mention it, but Keynote is where it's at if you need to do a presentation. At least with these programs you can have part of an office suite.

I'm still looking for a decent spreadsheet program myself. So if anyone knows of a native OS X spreadsheet program that is at least on par with Nisus Writer Express or Keynote please enlighten us all.

OO.org is dead for me as well. It started when I downloaded StarOffice back when I was using Windows, can anyone tell me why the hell I needed two taskbars and two start menus? wtf. Now I know OO.org isn't like this anymore, but things still bother me about it. Like the file path in the toolbar, ugly, useless and tacky.

Also, not free, and not really a hardcore spreadsheet app, but OmniOutliner [omnigroup.com] will pass for most spreadsheet tasks. You can use multiple columns, type them as numerical currency, and summarize (sum) numerical columns. There's an example expense list on the site.

Who cares about OpenOffice.org? People who want free software and recognize that software freedom is worth the work of development and the wait (or the cost, if one pays for it). Your post reminds me of one of the big differences between the free software and open source movements--and why the open source movement can be self-defeating at times.

With time and effort, free software becomes better on a technical scale. So the challenge is to teach people to value software freedom.

No. The challenge is to narrow the gap between the base quality (i.e., "excluding value judgements") of Free Software and the base quality of non-Free Software.

Anything else is Orwellian and self-defeating. Those who value software Freedoms will value Free Software, and those that come to value software Freedoms will also value Free Software--but the bulk of the effort

I don't know what "base" quality means, but you are repeating the self-conflicting philosophy of the open source movement. If we exclude making value judgements on software we can't determine which program is better at doing a particular job, nor can we accomplish the more important task of helping society by identifying software we can share and modify. It's not a question of making decisions absent value judgements, it's a question of deciding what to value.

"Base" quality is quality without moral judgement. If Microsoft Office 2003 were suddenly released under the GPL, would OpenOffice still be the better choice? If Longhorn were to be released as Free Software, why would anyone still use Linux?

There is nothing self-conflicting about the Open Source movement, or its principles. Sometimes, the closed, proprietary product is simply better--and (pay atten

Reading your passionate argument here, I'm getting that you see software selection (or any product selection for that matter) as an extension of the social contract, and that we should reward those individuals who make positive contributions by patronizing their art while shunning those individuals (or companies) that have a legacy of hurting society. This is kind of a Kant vs. Mills situation here because even though Microsoft Office provides the greatest aggregate happiness to the most people, Microsoft h

I had been using OpenOffice on my Mac to remain compatible with the OO.o docs I had created on my Linux systems but as you say it was ghastly. Recently I tried out NeoOffice/J (http://www.neooffice.org) which removes the need for X11 and looks better as it is at least somewhat integrated with the desktop. Still not aqua but it is a definite improvement. It is based on 1.0 which means it isn't quite as nice as 1.1, maybe it will be updated with this new release of OO.o. They are also working on testing a

Same here... I started my experimentations at OSX 10.2.8 which came with my G5. Tried every single way to add my language support to Openoffice, even messing with/etc files.. No hope.

Than 10.3 (panther update), I lived all the hassle. Installing X support of it etc... click a local char, it didn't work...

I ended up buying thinkfree office for 50 dollars, all java based and let me tell man, Java sux on some stages but I can NEVER tell it for international support. Its even same deal for my J2ME Siemens C5

I wanted the ultimative usability experience and OO.org could not satisfy any of that.

You, Sir, are watching way too many TV ads...

Since 20 months I am on search for The Office package.

I just bought my first iBook (I'm a Linux native), and I agree that there is no good office package for Apple. AppleWorks is a joke, AbiWord doesn't do enough, and OpenOffice.org has to be fed through Apple's rather klutzy X implementation.

But make no mistake: This is Apple's problem, not OpenOffice.org's. There is

I think you're laying the blame in the wrong place here. Until the main source team has completed certain parts of the 2.0 code, the 2-man porting team can't even really get started on the porting effort (and we're not going to see a full attempt at getting OO.org to OS X with anything but the 2.0 source).

So where should Apple throw their developers? Put them to work on the main source? THEN pull them off and put them on the porting effort? No.

The job is a big one, and the payoff just wouldn't be there at this moment in time. As soon as the 2.0 source is more complete and the porting work can begin, maybe then we will see Apple commitment (in the OS X port ONLY).

It's not Apple's fault, it's just that complex software takes time, and OO.org is pretty complex. Sure, the porting team could attempt to move OO.org 1.1.1 to native Aqua, but all their work would be broken with regards to 2.0, as the source is changing significantly in this transition (a lot of it to do with abstracting interfaces so that this kind of problem is surmountable and we can get an Aqua version).

But sadly, we're just going to have to wait - it's a big job, and Apple have much more pressing things to put their developers on than a two year project involving fixing up the main OO.o source, then moving to another 6 month - 1 year project to port it.

At the moment, Apple gains a lot from being able to claim Microsoft Office support, especially with the new Office 2004 coming soon. How much business sense does it make to be seen to be throwing your resources all over the shop into a competing office suite when despite that effort, the suite isn't going to be available for over two years? Not a lot! The way Apple should/is playing this is to support MS Office on the platform as it's really needed, and only attempt to publicly move momentum to something like OO.o when the transition can be swift, and OO.o is near mature for the platform.

Look at what happened when Apple supported the open source KHTML engine for Safari, as soon as Microsoft were snubbed they removed IE support. Luckily Safari was (juuuust about) ready to fill the gap left by MS. Now look at OO.o - it is NOT ready to fill the gap left by MS (as evidenced by all the posts here) how bright would it be to give MS any excuse/reason to withdraw support for Office on OS X before a replacement is ready to be announced?

As for KDE rivaling OS X, well each to his own I guess. You say that there is little that will be in Panther that won't be in KDE in a year - well I think more accurately would be 2-3 years... and then you are forgetting that Apple updates their OS too, and in that timeframe OS X would be moving forward also.

In terms of "Linux & Co breathing down [OS X's] neck...", well I would love to see a Linux distro give me what OS X gives me (then I wouldn't have to pay for it!) but I simply don't think you're right. Look at how things have moved ahead in the last three years (since OS X 10.0). Sure, KDE and Gnome have made nice enhancements, significant ones, much needed ones too. But when you compare where KDE/Gnome and OS X (or Aqua I guess) was three years ago, and where they both are today - the paths are NOT converging, OS X is moving further and further ahead at a fantastically TREMENDOUS pace... sure KDE and Gnome WILL implement the same features, but these features will by their nature be copy-cat features, and OS X at the moment is simply moving faster adding new features than KDE/Gnome can copy the old ones.

There is no serious office package for Mac OS X except for MS Office -- but there is no way I am going to pay that much money, and I'm one of those old-fashioned people who things stealing is wrong.

Well, you could always buy the Student/Teacher version at $149.00. I think you more or less qualify for it if you have anyone in your family that is in school. I'm thinking about buying it if the price is still the same when the 2004 version comes out, and it fixes the file name limitations in Office for OS X

Well, you could always buy the Student/Teacher version at $149.00. I think you more or less qualify for it if you have anyone in your family that is in school. I'm thinking about buying it if the price is still the same when the 2004 version comes out, and it fixes the file name limitations in Office for OS X 2003. If you buy the 2003 vsn and download the upgrade coupon, you get 2004, on CD, for free when it comes out. Original purchase between 6 jan and 1 June 04 required. Google for "OfficeXCoupon.pdf"

Yes, OOo on Mac OS X sucks, but the astonishing thing is that despite all the ways it sucks, it still manages to suck less than any other wordprocessor I've been able to find for the Mac - for my needs. I'm still reeling from that realisation. (But then my needs include being able to work on the same files in Linux and Windows, and to be able to rip data out of those files directly using self-written programs (Zipped XML files being trivial to handle in Java), so that really limited the field somewhat!) A n

Give Papyrus from ROM Logicware [rom-logicware.com] a try. They have a native OS X version out that looks really nice is is pretty fast. Word import is so-so, though... i don't know if they have an English demo as well, if not, try the German one.

MS takes ~8sec launch and open a file with 21 pages, several images, some text is highligted. Header, footer and page counter. The file has been created with v.X and then tortured by MS Office 2000 on windo

OOo has its problems. But of all the non-MS office packs I've used, and I've tried practically all of them, it is the only one that is even remotely adequate for compatibility. And this is the number one sticking point for office suites.

NeoOffice/J is acceptable looking and acceptably fast. Load time is slow, but I only load it once per boot. The only other program I'm pulling for is Nisus Writer, which used to be the best, and now is in a lamentable state. If they can get their act together (tables) an

For your spreadsheet, try using Gnumeric as a companion to Abiword.
The X11 layer is still a minor annoyance, but the slowdown there is really only on startup, and the advantage of having the world of open source software at my fingertips is huge -- especially since I can go from my g3 desktop to my linux laptop without skipping a beat.

In Ulrich Drepper's paper on writing shared libraries [redhat.com], there is a discussion of why it takes so long to start up. Debian lets you use prelink [redhat.com] to speed up the dynamic linking time. I dunno how much speedup you get.

From Drepper's paper:

With the knowledge of the hashing function and the details of the string lookuplet us look at a real-world example: OpenOffice.org. The package contains 144 separate DSOs. During startup about 20,000 relocations are performed. The number of string comparisons needed during the symbol resolution can be used as a fair value for the startup overhead. We compute and approximation of this value now.

The average chain length for unsuccessful lookup in all DSOs of the OpenOffice.org 1.0 release on IA-32 is 1.1931. This means for each symbol lookup the dynamic linker has to perform on average 72 x 1.1931 = 85.9032 string comparisons. For20,000 symbols, the total is 1,718,064 string comparisons. The average length of an exported symbol defined in the DSOs of OpenOffice.org is 54.13. Even if we are assuming that only 20% of the string is searched before finding a mismatch (which is an optimistic guess since every symbol name is compared completely at least one to match itself) this would mean a total of more than 18.5 million characters have been loaded from memory and compared. No wonder the startup is so slow, especially since we ignored other costs.

Your example probably fits in the Level 1 cache of your processor - try doing the test with a 20 meg array, picking one random place to compare with another random pace and you'll probably get a diferent result. Oh... the tokens for linking arn't only one char in length... you might want to choose somthing larger.

Yeah, you're right, after I posted that I thought about it a little. but I only need to do one char comparisons because thats what he is talking about how many chars are being compared... Its much slower if its got further to look.

Mac OS X has had this "prelink" stuff since 10.0. Apple calls it "prebinding". It happens during the "optimisation" stage of installing software. You have to build your program properly for it to being able to be prebound, however.

Definitely gonna try this out. I've messed around with X11/Fink off and on, and recently have been in one of the "on" streaks. Just installed KDE! This will be a welcome addition since I don't use my mac for word processing that much (just editing text files and the occasional rich-text), usually switch to the PC and Word 2k3. Seems that there are a bunch of OK word processors for OS X, but none that really stand out.

For those who need a good, basic word processor with advanced language and academic style features, it's hard to beat mellel. Check it out at redlers.com [redlers.com]. Cost is $29 shareware, so you can't beat the price, and it is definitely much better than MS "I reformat every document to make it not really Turabian because 'it looks like you are trying to write a letter!'" Word.

I tried Mellel and it rocks - fast, cheap, and easy to use. I also tried Mariner while it's not as good (it "feels" ever so slightly clunky), I eventually keep having to go back to Word, due to the needs of my clients. Unfortunately, I'm not in a position to force them to switch applications.

sadly, though, i use microsoft office on my work pc.
for opening word documents on my tibook i use textedit, but that's probably because i'm not doin much more than copying text from word docs to dreamweaver or something basic like that.

I installed OpenOffice last last friday from the 1.1.1RC3 source and it doesn't seem slow on my comp. Personally I think it looks good in X11 with KDE as the wm. Takes less time to start than any of the MS Office apps.

Can I just mention LaTeX as the best solution for all your typesetting needs? It is by far the best solution to give quality output. Obviously it isn't quite as easy to use, but goddamn does it look good. There are a number of front ends for osX as well, such as TeXshop. If you are looking for international languages, oddball symbols, or anything else, TeX is the way to go!

Yes I know it's slow and I know it's hard to build and I know the average computer user won't probably know how to install it.

But just having it there is already a step in the right direction. It means all the docs I developed on my Linux box are openable one way or another on a Mac, and that gives me a lot more confidence to keep using the sxw file format. I'm feeling patient (already had my coffee today) so I can wait for 2.0 to come out in Cocoa. Keep investing in that file format. Send your docs to

The people at NeoOffice.org [neooffice.org] are working on two parallel OOo ports. The first, NeoOffice, attempts to port OOo to Aqua. It seems to have stagnated, but the very promising NeoOffice/J [planamesa.com] is rapidly approaching 1.0!

NeoOffice/J replaces the dependency on X with a dependency on Java, which is treated as a native toolkit in OSX. NeoOffice/J may not look like an Aqua app yet, but it does integrate nicely with the AA fonts and can use OSX's copy and paste. It takes a good 30 seconds to launch on my G3 iBook 700/640MB RAM but once it's up and running it is quite fast. I recently removed the OOo X11 port from my machine, as NeoOffice/J works more consistently for me.

NeoOffice/J is based on OOo 1.0 but it's still much better than nothing, not to mention much better than the X11 port. It's very easily installed with a DMG file and the standard Apple installer, once installed it behaves like any other OSX app, setting up the MIME types properly, etc.

I've installed 0.82 in the Mac lab here at work, as we didn't purchase MSO with the machines and students were trying to open PPT lectures. Anyway, I'd take NeoOffice/J over AppleWorks any day of the week. I even prefer it to MS Office on OSX. (Sorry, it may look Aqua-ish, but it's an odd duck too.)

----------------------

From the NeoOffice/J site:

No X11 software required

NeoOffice/J uses the JavaTM technology that is built into Mac OS X. By using Java, there is no need to download and install the X11 software that OpenOffice.org requires.

Integrated with Finder and Mail

The Mac OS X Finder will automatically launch NeoOffice/J and open OpenOffice.org and MicrosoftTM Office documents that you double-click on. Also the Mac OS X Mail application will open OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office attachments in NeoOffice/J.

Uses Mac OS X fonts

Unlike OpenOffice.org, NeoOffice/J uses the same fonts that all of your other Mac OS X applications use. This means that NeoOffice/J will handle reading and writing of Western European characters (e.g. characters with accents, umlauts, circumflexes, cedillas, etc.) and some fonts will even handle Japanese, Chinese, and Korean ideographs. Also, NeoOffice/J is able to use any fonts that you install in your Library/Fonts subfolder or the/Library/Fonts folder.

Handles international keyboards

Unlike OpenOffice.org, NeoOffice/J will use an keyboard layout that you use. I routinely switch to a Spanish keyboard without a problem. Also, if you switch your keyboard layout while NeoOffice/J is running, NeoOffice/J will automatically switch as well.

Native printing support

NeoOffice/J supports printing using Mac OS X's native printing functionality. Like other Mac OS X applications, you can use NeoOffice/J to print, preview, or save a document to a PDF file.

Native copy and paste support

NeoOffice/J supports copying and pasting using Mac OS X's native clipboard so you can copy and paste text and images between NeoOffice/J and other Mac OS X applications.

I've tried several versions of OpenOffice.org on OSX and on other systems. My major issue with this project is that it's a complete carbon copy of MS Office. I realise that compatability with MS Office is vitally important to any success of this project, but the entire user interface does not need to be copied. The major reason that I hate using the Windows version of MS Office and earlier versions for the Mac was the god awful interface. It was far too much effort to do simple things like change the font on type size. OpenOffice.org has copied this atrocity of an interface. Frankly, the OSX vesion of MS Office is far better, and pricewise, isn't too bad for a student (3 licenses for $150). If OpenOffice.org can't come up with their own interface, they could at least copy a good one. I have fond memories of Corel WordPerfect 3.5 for MacOS. Look at that.

As always: I'm not a developer, it's the coolest thing, people giving their time and brains to OSS projects.

Still: a major gripe:

The installation instruction page is baffling. Too many dependencies, too much stuff to be installed and set up. And what non-programming user will install developer tools?

I've dabbled with Darwin and fink just enough to know it isn't for me. In the end it was able to download and install 0 software, in countless hours of fiddling. That's when I decided I'd use my time more productively begging for binaries than re-schooling myself. You see, contrary to popular belief, most mac users aren't normally blessed with a background in UNIX/Linux;-)

But also for organisations and companies using OS X, what's the advantage of OOo when you have to depend on such a cumbersome process?

Suddenly - when including IT hours - MS Office is cheaper or at least not that expensive. Insert CD, drag and drop Office folder in your Applications Folder, done. Oops, that seems to have cost the organisation the better part of a whole minute;-)

ANSCD (and now something completely different):The Gimp 2 has recently come available, and a developer has compiled an OS X binary that's just wonderful to install. Brainless one-click totally OS X standard installation process. Meaning you can install Gimp on a bunch of macs in say one hour or less? And just about anybody could do this, not just the IT guy/grrl.

And when starting up Gimp - double-click the icon, duh! - X11 is launched in the background. Meaning that although it needs an extra Windowing manager, it doesn't distract you with this. X11 is standard in OS X 10.3 (Panther) so that made it a total non-issue for me. Sweet.

Meaning: although Photoshop is still A Better Product(tm), Gimp is an OSS package that every low-budget mac user - or organisation with few graphic needs - should, can and most likely in the future WILL consider.

OOo at this moment is not. And that's solely based on the install process. Pity, no?

Two final remarks:

1) I try to keep informed about OOo and understand it's an uphill battle for the two (2????) OS X porters. Kudos to them for turning out the update.

2) It's a myth that every mac user is loaded and loves to spend tons on software. OSS is eyed very very closely by the mac community since OS X. When - if - KDE gets its native port, you'll be surprised by the amount of KOffice downloads. I didn't get the pre-alpha to run yet, but at least installing was a no-brainer.

Is when OpenOffice.org has a Cocoa version of OO.org. Any other port won't do. For Apple to build an Office Killer they know it will be written in Objective-C with AppKit/Foundation and additional APIs native specific for their Office Killer, if and when it becomes Reality.

Being a mac user means that we too exist in this open source community. I am disappointed in the fact that Open Office releases are delayed as much as they are for OSX when most other apps migrate over considerably faster. Open Office should encourage mac users to download their software, instead of making it seem like a burden for them to create updates for us.For me, there is no point in using OOo when I cannot keep current with the rest of the linux/windows community in an app.Just my $0.02.